This Sun of York

by Susan Appleyard

  “Not long now, please God,” Warwick said to the little group sat dejectedly beside a ditch: travellers on their way to London whose progress had been halted by the impending battle. He had given them food and water and even set a guard over their waggons. He always made a point of being gracious to the commons, particularly the merchant class. It was good policy.

  John and Thomas stood beside the wall that ran along the edge of the meadow. As both were now fully encased in armour, except for helms and gauntlets, it was impossible to sit.

  “We’re sprouting roots,” Tom said. “How goes the battle, Brother?”

  They all looked toward the nearest barricade as another swarm of screaming men stumbled and floundered over the many bodies littering the lane. A file of men helped the wounded to the surgeons’ tents, but others lay jerking and shrieking in their own blood and piss because it was too dangerous to rescue them.

  “Madness.” John spat into the grass.

  “You had it right when you said an assault would be deadly. He won’t consider fire arrows for fear the fire would spread. What else can we do?”

  Edward left them and wandered through the field, approaching the houses that fronted onto St. Peter’s Street from the rear. He had a piss and then went a little closer, then closer still. No one came charging at him. No arrow flew in his direction.

  “What have you been up to?” Warwick asked as he came running back, flushed and excited.

  “Scouting. I have an idea.” Leaning down, he drew a rough sketch of the town in the dust of the road, showing the streets and lanes, the position of the two enemy divisions, each between and in support of two barricades, and the marketplace. Warwick had ridden through St. Albans many times and had once availed himself of the hospitality of the abbey, so he was familiar enough with the town to know that the sketch was accurate.

  “The enemy can see that we’re concentrating our attacks on the barricades. It’s what they expect because it’s conventional warfare. But supposing we lead the men between the houses right over there, where we’ll come out in the marketplace and have plenty of space to manoeuvre. Then we can spread out and attack the barricades from behind.”

  “But we’ll be between their two forces!” John said incredulously.

  Edward was unperturbed. “True. But think about it. If we suddenly appear in their midst in sufficient numbers, they’ll think we sprang from the bowels of hell and be thrown into such confusion they won’t be able to mount an effective defence.”

  “You’re daft!” Thomas said loftily.

  “No, that’s daft.” Edward stabbed a finger toward the barricade.

  Warwick, whose eyes were especially bright as he gazed at his young cousin, said neutrally: “Why is he daft, Tom?”

  “Because Thermopylae proved that a small band of men could hold thousands at bay in a narrow space,” said Thomas, looking pleased with himself.

  “True,” said Warwick, who was smiling openly now. “But I’d have to say that’s an argument in favour of Edward’s proposal. What do you think, John?”

  John nodded. “It’s risky. As I said, we’ll be caught between two forces. They could crush us. But I say anything’s better than sitting on our arses and watching this slaughter. ”

  “It’s possible we’ll be trapped, but that presupposes good generalship, which is to give our enemies too much credit. I think Edward’s outcome far more likely. They’re prepared for an attack from the east. If we appear in their midst, we’ll throw them into utter confusion.” Warwick glanced again at the barricade and his mouth thinned so that his lips all but disappeared. “I’m not prepared to wait and see what will happen if those barricades aren’t demolished before nightfall. St. Albans will not be allowed to become another Blackheath.” He slapped his palms together, said to Edward, “Good thinking, lad. We’ll do it.”

  Tom groaned but said nothing.

  “And here’s how we’ll do it. John, you take five hundred men and attack the force to the south. Select a group beforehand to concentrate their efforts on the nearest barricade once you’ve emerged into St. Peter’s Street. I’ll do the same to the north. The rest we’ll hold in reserve until we’re in the town. All right, let’s get the men moving. We’ll be visible from the barricades until we get close to our objective, so once we’re ready we have to make it quick. Thomas, go with John. Edward –” He paused, knowing full well that York wouldn’t want his son hazarded in battle. Once encased fully in armour no one would know he was a mere boy. The pause was infinitesimal, however. “I won’t need my horse. We’ll do this on foot. Stay close by me.”

  It was just after Nones when the men of Warwick shrugged their idleness off like a heavy quilt and came to order, shouldering their weapons. They wore the emblem of the Bear and Ragged Staff proudly on the sleeves of their scarlet jackets and made a brave show. From their location, they could see everything that was going on at the Butts Lane barricade and hear the screams of their wounded and dying comrades. They were eager for action.

  At a trot, they started across the meadow toward the rear of the row of houses on the northern end of St. Peter’s Street. They were entirely visible to those manning the barricades but couldn’t tell if the alarm had been given, or if the defenders were too occupied to see what was going on. They quickened their pace upon reaching the small gardens at the back of the houses, squashing tender young cabbages and turnip sprouts beneath their booted feet, demolishing beanpoles and trampling their fruit. Hens fluttered out of their path, clucking in outrage. A wiry-coated dog started to bark, and Warwick cursed under his breath. He made an abrupt gesture with his hand, and one of his archers pinned the dog against the side of a wood shed. Surely someone had heard and would come to investigate, he thought. He hurried on, his every sense alert and prickling with awareness. He imagined eyes watching from behind shuttered windows. Even now, the enemy might be amassing to surprise them in turn, to attack them as they emerged into the marketplace. If so, there would be a slaughter infinitely worse than the ones at the barricades. His heart was thudding with a kind of fearful exhilaration.

  “Get a move on!” he hissed at the man in front of him. Edward was all but treading on his heels.

  In the narrow space between two cottages, a man wearing the Portcullis badge of Somerset was relieving himself into the straw of a pig sty, while looking over his shoulder and laughing with his comrades who were sprawled in the shade with their weapons scattered around them. Three wine pitchers rolled on their sides. Just as he was readjusting his clothing, his head swivelled slowly, and he froze at the sight that met his eyes. A wave of scarlet, crested with a metallic glitter rolled toward him in full spate. He screamed something incoherent before a feather-tipped shaft sent him sprawling in the foul straw with the sow and her litter. It was enough to give warning to his companions. There was a frantic scramble for weapons amid shouts of alarm. Then they were on their feet braced for attack. Others converged on the junction, but they were too few and too disorganised to offer more than token resistance. They were engulfed, tossed aside like so much debris, and Warwick’s men flooded into the marketplace.

  Glancing to the south, he saw the men under John’s command emerge on the other side of the marketplace with cries of ‘A Warwick!’ ‘A York!’ and fall on the enemy with the vigour of those who scent an easy victory. A quick look around told him that the enemy had been taken completely off guard and thrown into confusion, just as Edward had predicted, and he laughed exultantly. Some, in fact, had been standing to arms, ready to relieve or support those at the barriers, and it was these men who clashed with them as they poured into the marketplace. Many more had been taking their ease in the empty houses, swilling ale pillaged from the tavern. Now they stumbled through doorways, glancing around with the dazed look of those rudely jolted from sleep. And the great lords, who had gathered in the forecourt of an inn, now had to scramble for helms and weapons, a shared look of incredulous horror on their faces.

  Warwick was in
the thick of the fighting and packed into such close quarters that he could hardly swing his sword at an enemy without endangering a comrade. More of his men poured between the houses, pushing those ahead relentlessly forward in their eagerness to come at the enemy. The flood of scarlet seeped like a bloodstain toward the barriers where those on guard had become aware of their peril.

  Wading into a seething shifting mass of fighting men, Warwick caught the thrust of a pike in the middle of his cuirass. Edward supported him, and he managed to stay on his feet. With a manic scream, he went after the pikeman who turned and fled. Cheated of that prey, he plunged his sword into the gut of a Percy man, ripping upward as he withdrew it so that the man’s entrails spilt out.

  Edward followed closely behind him, watching for an opportunity to blood his virgin sword. The din was tremendous in such a small space. The clash of weapons, the screams of the wounded, and the triumphant yells of the victors was a constant assault on the ears.

  Warwick ducked just in time to avoid the spiked menace of a morningstar. A well-aimed blow from a morningstar could drive a knight’s helm into his skull, or at least knock him off his feet when he would be unable to rise without help. Warwick struck out clumsily and managed to land a glancing blow on his opponent’s thigh, which sent him reeling off in search of easier prey.

  And while he was thus engaged, Edward had a foe of his own. A Beaufort man, wearing a cuirass over brigandines and a sallet, like a metal pot, which showed his face, his cold eyes, his animal snarl, pushed forward. He rang his sword off the young earl’s shoulder before Edward was prepared for him. Then they danced, a step forward, a step back, a sidestep, a pivot, but it was all like the lessons at home except that this fellow had no skill, only brute ferocity, and he had once bested the master-at-arms, who had considerable skill.

  He slashed and parried and slashed again, and then he turned to stone. The bloody sword drooped in his hand. He stared down at the severed arm lying in a pool of its own blood in the churned dust at his feet. The rest of the body reeled drunkenly between men hacking and stabbing at one another, spewing blood on all he passed. It wasn’t that hard a blow, he thought, bewildered. It was so easy. Warwick grabbed him by the arm, propelled him to the side of a house and propped him against a rain barrel. They had fought their way down and across the street, and it seemed that the fighting had begun to ease. The air was full of churned up dust and the stench of blood and loosened bowels.

  Warwick removed Edward’s helm and lifted his own visor. The boy was in a mild state of shock, no worse, his pupils dilated so that little of the blue was visible. There was a ladle in the barrel. Warwick dipped and handed it to him.

  “Christ save us, you gave me a scare, lad,” he said. “Are you all right? Not hurt?”

  All the healthy colour drained from Edward’s face, leaving it the colour of whey. “I think I’m going to puke!” he said in some surprise. Then, with a manly effort, he focused his eyes on Warwick’s face and swallowed. “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Good man.”

  Man. He called me man. I was given my spurs as a little boy. Today I earned them. I won’t tell Edmund about nearly puking.

  An archer in Warwick’s colours came running up, grinning. “God save you, my lords. We’ve got the Duke of Somerset.”

  Warwick leant toward him. “Alive?”

  “Briefly.” The man cackled with laughter. “He’s at the inn,” he added and scampered off.

  “What do you say, Edward? Shall we see his end?”

  The boy nodded, tucked his helm under his arm and followed Warwick out into the street. They were close to the barricade now and paused a moment to watch the defenders helping their Yorkist enemies dismantle it, as the best means of escape, for Warwick’s men now harried their rear. As the two earls made their way up the street, the press of bodies was thinner. Many of the Lancastrians had escaped to take refuge in the abbey or hide in the woods. A crowd had gathered around the inn, where not so long ago the proud banners of Henry’s lords floated above the forecourt and now had been pulled down and trampled in the dust.

  A knight was trapped against the closed door. Over his cuirass, he wore a silk jupon emblazoned with the arms of Beaufort. His helm was off, his face red with exertion and rage and drenched with sweat. It was Somerset.

  Three men of Warwick surrounded him, flicking him with their weapons, tormenting and taunting him. They were playing with him like a cat with a mouse, while he tried to fend them off with a sword bloody to the hilt, and at the same time fumbled frantically behind for the latch of the door, as if trying to escape inside.

  Seeing Warwick, he called out, “Warwick, call off your jackals! I yield!”

  The three men who had been harassing him backed off, awaiting their lord’s will. Warwick looked at the inn’s sign for several long moments. Then he focused on Somerset, and the two stared at one another with hate-filled eyes. Somerset was panting. Slowly, Warwick’s thin lips curved in a malicious little smile.

  “I hear my Lord of Somerset refuses to accompany the court to Windsor,” he said to the crowd at large. “Why, you may wonder. I’ll tell you why. Because a soothsayer once told him that he would die in a castle and he doesn’t want to die. Ever. Isn’t that so, my lord?”

  Somerset’s eyes were wary. “What are you prattling about?”

  “Look above you. Your fate was foretold, and your folly has brought you here to meet it. Look up, Somerset, and see your doom.” Warwick boomed with laughter, an explosion of sound lacking any humour.

  The men around him had fallen into a respectful silence while Warwick spoke. Now they drew in their breaths in a concerted sigh and began to mutter and cross themselves. Unable to resist, Somerset turned his head and looked up at the sign above the door, swinging gently on its creaking chain, a sign he had seen many times that day without recognising its terrible significance. He was standing outside the Castle Inn.

  He said nothing. His sword fell until the tip rested against the ground. All the robust colour drained from his face, and the pale eyelids fluttered closed, shutting out the scene in the street. His mouth began to move in a silent prayer as he prepared himself for death.

  Warwick nodded to the three men. “Cease your games. Finish it.”

  Edward was shocked. “My lord, he yielded!”

  As the three men converged on the Duke, who made no effort to defend himself, Warwick’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Would you have me spare him? God’s Blood, he’s your father’s chief enemy. He has access to the King’s ear and the Queen’s bed. We cannot afford to be squeamish.”

  Edward bridled at the suggestion that he was squeamish, but there was no point in protesting further; it was too late. A blow from a mace had effectively demolished the Duke’s nose and mouth and split a panel in the door. His legs crumpled beneath him, and he sank into the doorway, stunned, coughing out blood and teeth. The men closed in on him to batter and stab him until his head was nothing but a broken, bloody pulp, no longer recognisable as human. His throat was slashed. His last gasping breaths bubbled in his throat, and he was left crumpled in the doorway, staring up with sightless eyes at the sign hanging above his head. The onlookers began to drift away.

  Edward was still unhappy about what had happened. “He shouldn’t have died like that,” he said to his cousin. “He was a nobleman. He should have died in battle or been ransomed, not bludgeoned to death by those lowborn fellows. And since when do we cut down men who have yielded themselves?”

  “But he did die in battle. You can see for yourself, he still has his sword in his hand. It was an honourable end. None of us could ask for a better.”

  Edward was not convinced. If Warwick hoped to pass that tale as truth, he would be doomed to failure. Too many men had heard Somerset yield and seen him struck down without any attempt at defence. The truth couldn’t be hidden. Edward saw clearly how Somerset’s death had changed things. If his father, or even Warwick himself, were to fall into enemy hands, they
could expect the same kind of mercy that Somerset had been given. Because of what Warwick had done, a struggle for ascendancy had become a fight to the death.

  “Have done. Don’t waste your pity on your enemies,” Warwick said. “The man is dead – the manner of it doesn’t matter. It’s another obstacle, a very large obstacle, removed from your father’s path. That should please you. Come, put away that long face and rejoice in our enemies’ defeat.”

  “It was barbarous.”

  “Death is seldom sweet. Except perhaps for madmen and martyrs.” Warwick bent his head. “Get me out of this oven, will you.”

  Bodies and pools of blood already soaking into the dry dust littered the street. Flies swarmed everywhere, and their incessant buzzing was as sickening as the metallic stench. Captives were herded around the clock tower and a ring of soldiers set to guard them. The business of disposal of the captives was being dealt with as it had always been done after battles in France. If a man of substance happened to be taken captive by a commoner, he would be handed over to his captor’s overlord for a consideration. He would forfeit horse, arms and armour and might be required to pay a cash ransom as well. It was a debt of honour, and until paid, he would be sent to a country house or castle for safekeeping. Whether he was imprisoned in a stark cell or comfortably housed and treated like a guest depended upon the temperament of his host. Even a man-at-arms would be relieved of anything he possessed of use or value – a pair of good boots, a knife, a medallion given him by his sweetheart – before being released to make his way back home as best he could.

  John Neville came down the street with his characteristically purposeful stride, as if he had urgent business. Thomas was a little way behind him, laughing and shouting among a group of other youngsters, no doubt already concocting tales of personal heroism. There were still little knots of fighting men here and there, but for the most part St. Peter’s Street was a sea of scarlet, beginning to merge with blue and murrey as York’s men surged through the demolished barricade.